The comments section of your posts is an ideal place to start forming relationships with prospective customers/clients. 

If you're posting on Instagram and hearing crickets, watch the video below or just keep on reading:

Captions are the best way to drive engagement and encourage your followers to start conversations with you, but how do you do that?

Here's a simple formula you can use to write captions on Instagram that get more comments: H (hook), A (action), S (skim test):

1. HOOK

Your caption can't bring in comments if no one's reading it, so the very first line of your caption needs to stop them in their tracks and entice them to read more.

This is similar to a headline in a newspaper that grabs people's attention so that they read the rest of the article.

You want to make sure your hook is:

• short
• attention grabbing; and
• separated from the rest of your caption with a line break (more on that later).

Example: In a recent post where I laid out how to write captions that sell, my headline was "WRITE CAPTIONS THAT SELL". Rather than immediately going into the body of my caption, I added a line that would stop someone mid-scroll and entice them to read more.

2. ACTION

You don't get what you don't ask for. If you want comments, ask for them.

Add a "Call to Action" at the end of your post. Ask them a question that's easy to answer or ask them what their experiences or thoughts are in response to what you wrote about.

You want to make sure your call to action is:

• easy to answer (don't make them think too hard to come up with a response);
• separated from the rest of your caption by a line break; and
• followed up with additional prompts like emoji arrows pointing down towards the comment section.

Example: In this post, I shared the moments I knew I wasn't cut out for corporate life and at the end, I asked "When did you know you weren't cut out for the 9-5?". This post generated a lot of great conversation and helped me get to know more about my ideal clients.

3. SKIM TEST

The skim test has two parts to it:

        (1) Is your caption spaced out and readable?

Be sure to break up your caption with line breaks, so that it's not a daunting chunk of text that people will want to skip over. If you want two simple hacks to create line breaks, be sure to watch this video. 

        (2) Is your caption written in a conversational tone?

If you want to create conversation in your comments, then your caption must be conversational. Write how you speak and avoid industry speak or jargon that might go over your readers' heads and cause them to disengage from your post.

And that's it! Try this formula out in your next few captions and see the comments start rolling in.

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